This week’s Local Legend is one of the Twin Town’s greatest movers and shakers. He built a legacy that has been described as “the second biggest transport empire in the world, operating by road, rail, sea and air.” It is a legacy that is now a household name the world over. Kenneth William Thomas was born on the 15th of June, 1913, in Murrumburrah to parents Arthur “Gart” & Elizabeth Thomas. He was one of six children, three girls and three boys. His father Arthur worked for his grandmother as a Funeral Director in Murrumburrah, and it was in this role that Arthur met Elizabeth at the age of 18, as he was leading a funeral procession up Demondrille Hill.
Kenneth’s father, like many in Harden-Murrumburrah at that time, worked on the railways. Starting off firstly as a Fireman, Arthur then became a Locomotive Driver. His Fireman for a while was a young man from Bathurst by the name of Benjamin Chifley. Chifley would later become Prime Minister of Australia from 1945 to 1949. Elizabeth, Ken’s mother, was a McLeod from Cullinga and grew up on a property there called ‘Airlie’. Her deep love and respect for learning would be an immeasurable influence on Ken Thomas’s life and fortunes. “My boyhood was healthy enough. Billy carts, climbing trees, wrestling, chasing two cows barefooted on frosty mornings & milking them twice a day,” wrote Ken.
“Mother directed my early life in the paths of righteousness via Church & School.” Ken showed early promise in these fields, winning annual Presbyterian Church prizes, school prizes for elocution and even topping the State for Scripture. But Ken was also a mischievous child, as he recalled: “The ‘Dunnies’ were all located at the back lane, with little door flaps opening onto the lane so that the pan could slide out, loaded onto the double-decker cart, and replaced by a fresh one. First Class materials handling! Now, Mrs. Cole had the misfortune to live near the corner of the land. She would emerge from the kitchen, promenade ‘down the back’, close the door and ascend the throne.
We kids used to silently open the flap door, poke some twigs up and tickle her bum. Shrieks! Snakes! Hasty pulling up of drawers! By the time she emerged we were round the corner and far away.” Ken’s favourite story, however, was one that he called the ‘Harden Spectacular’. “One day something had frightened the horses, and they took off. The cart bolted down the main street of Harden and into Clarke Street, where we lived. The horses took the corner too fast; the cart had sliding doors, so as it lurched and swayed the sliding doors opened and allowed more cans to fall out. As they hit the road, the lids fell off and the load went everywhere. The horses broke their harness and took off.” The last that Ken remembered seeing of the cart, it was lying on its side on the hill in Murrumburrah. Until the age of 12, Ken attended what was then known as Murrumburrah Intermediate High School, now Murrumburrah Public School.
It was at the age of 12 that Ken’s parents decided to uproot the family and move to Sydney. Ken’s mother stated that it was for the benefit of the children’s education, but Ken thought that there was more to it. “There were also misgivings about Harden’s future as a Railway town because the big new locos had a longer range, and smaller depots and workshops faced decline. Probably, as much as anything, she wanted to get away from the small town rivalries, and Sydney sounded so glamorous.” It is interesting that talk of the decline of the Railways in Harden-Murrumburrah was evident as early as the mid-1920s. Ken’s father transferred to the Clyde railway depot in western Sydney, and the family lived in Camperdown and Glebe in the inner city. Ken was enrolled at Fort Street Boys High School, a selective school, where Ken had impressed the Principal in an interview.
Former students include Sir Edmund Barton, the first Prime Minister of Australia, former Labor Opposition Leader, Dr Herbert Evatt, and Sir John Kerr, the Governor-General who sacked Gough Whitlam in 1975. But Ken found city life quite a change from his upbringing in Harden- Murrumburrah. The education Ken received in Sydney failed to entirely teach him and arouse his curiosity. But education was still a valued asset to the Thomas family. “My mother had the good sense to believe that education is the greatest privilege on Earth,” wrote Ken. Ken’s Protestant, working class background was something that he felt shaped his outlook and personality. “It taught me to be independent, to ‘stop whingeing and do something,’” he wrote.
As a boy in Sydney, Ken and a mate started a firewood delivery service using a billy cart and the offcuts from a timber yard at Blackwattle Bay. Little did Ken know that transport would be his future. At the age of 15, Ken went to work at the Savings Bank, where he began as a junior and then became a teller. It was here that Ken saw the faces of the Great Depression, with people attempting to withdraw their savings, and some selling their bank books for less than 75% of their worth. Ken then decided to improve his education, and completed his matriculation for High School at Sydney Technical College in 1932. He later did an Arts Degree at Sydney University, studying Philosophy, Psychology, Latin and Greek, and graduating in 1935. He later did an economics degree. All this was done at night after working during the day. After graduating with his two degrees, Ken went into teaching for a short time. He taught at Trinity Grammar in Strathfield, but then moved on to work as a Salesman, and worked selling vans for Lever Brothers. It was at Lever Brothers that he came to know his wife future wife, Anne McKinnon. They married at St Peter’s Presbyterian Church in North Sydney on the 23rd of December, 1939. With the outbreak of war, instead of joining the armed forces, Ken became a personnel officer for the Department of Labour and National Service. Ken worked at the Maribyrnong munitions factory, and later in Rockhampton. After the war, Ken seized the moment. He came to realise that his future was in transport.
In 1946, Ken bought a 5 tonne truck, and hired a driver by the name of Frank Legge. To pay for the wages of the driver and to support his family, he continued working in his wartime job for two years. Ken worked weekends driving the truck and helping out himself. He wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. He mainly operated in Sydney, the Southern Highlands and Wollongong initially, trading as K.W. Thomas. In the first fifteen weeks of the company’s operations, no profit was made. Ken seriously considered pulling out of the business. But Ken struck luck with the combination of a rail strike and a lucrative hide contract from Melbourne to Sydney. The rail strike prevented cement from Kandos travelling by rail, so K.W Thomas transport took cement to Melbourne and returned to Sydney with the hides. Interstate transport proved quite profitable.
At the time, the rail transport was proving ineffective and inefficient. There was a change of gauge at Albury and industrial problems were rampant. In August 1946, there was even talk of bringing in the Army to continue to drive trucks until the rail industrial problems were solved. Regardless of the issues with rail, road transport was inhibited by a myriad economic and political issues. Economically, petrol rationing was still in place and a road tax was imposed on freight travelling by road that could have been placed on rail. Politically, the Attlee government in Britain in 1947 had nationalised the transport industry, amongst others, and it was feared that Ken’s father’s old understudy, Benjamin Chifley, would do the same with his Prime Ministership. Luckily, the transport industry in Australia was not nationalised. Ken, at this time, did find jobs that the railways were unwilling or unable to take on. On one occasion, Frank and Ken drove down to Melbourne with a boiler that was too large to take by rail. The truck overheated and caught fire just outside of Melbourne, and Ken used his coat to beat the fire out. After offloading the boiler at its destination, they were able to obtain a return load to Sydney.
They realised that, in reality, there was plenty of freight available at a good price, and Ken forged on ahead with the business despite his initial worries. Ken took advantage of the plethora of surplus military vehicles on the market to acquire three tabletops and an 18 ft (6m) semi-trailer. With a fleet of vehicles and drivers to manage, Ken left his job with Cumberland County Council to manage his prospering business. Ken did this from home, without even a yard to put the trucks in.
Part II Next Week… The Rise of TNT
